It can be very confusing, to say the least, when we are told we have to forgive others. Then we have to let them go. All this in order to move forward with our lives in a positive way. Our natural instinct is to want to get our own back. Or at the very least, see the other person punished for the wrong doing. That doesn’t always happen!

(Heads up this is a long blog and may cause triggers.)

This kind of reaction is only natural. It can be justified at times, as some things are unforgiveable. Yes they are unforgiveable and because of that we find ourselves still trapped by them. The reactions we have do tie us to the past. We give the past power that can be otherwise better spent on healing ourselves. So do you want to move on?

Forgiveness Is A Choice.

I will never ask anyone to forgive someone. That is their personal choice. But what we fail to realise is that we can work on forgiveness and find peace with the past. Plus it doesn’t have anything to do with the other person.

Let me say from the start that I believe forgiveness of yourself is at the heart of your serenity and moving on with our lives. We sometimes forget that we do have to forgive ourselves too. It is usually our lack of self-forgiveness that holds us to the past. To our guilt and shame. Added to that, the fear we may still have of the other person, even if they are long gone, will also keep us trapped.

We need to deal with all of these issues as part of self-forgiveness. Letting the person go, along with the past. That is a lot of hard courageous work. It may require professional support. So please reach out if you need to.

Forgiveness V’s Reconciliation.

We often confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. This confusion is one reason why we get so hung up when it comes to forgiveness. If we can separate the two, then we find we are able to tackle forgiveness much more readily.

Firstly, forgiveness is not reconciliation. As this would require at least two people to be involved. And it would require a sincere apology from the other person.

Secondly, forgiveness only requires you and you alone. It requires you to forgive yourself first, and foremost. Only then if we chose we can move to reconciliation and then the other person secondly.

It should be noted that when we do forgive ourselves that is often enough to enable us to let go of the past and move on. Letting go doesn’t mean we have to forget by the way. It just means we have found our peace with the past.

Why We Struggle With Forgiveness?

Forgiveness is an extremely hard thing to do because we make it so for ourselves. That can be hard to hear. We often forget to forgive ourselves first and as I said we concentrate solely on the other person(s) involvement.

We can get hung up in our anger, guilt, shame, etc. So much so, that we fail to move on to forgiveness at all. In other words, we are so caught up in a negative cycle in our heads that keeps ourselves trapped in the past. What happened is gone. We are the ones keeping it alive and kicking in the here and now.

Why do we allow ourselves to get caught up in anger, or in any emotion for that matter? It can be part of the pattern we have built up as a result of our life experiences. We simply don’t realize that we have to recognize how we feel. Learn to accept these feelings and where we are right now. Before we can move on or take action.

We may have to ask for help if we recognize that we are caught up in a negative thinking cycle or our emotions. It will take courage to ask for help. I understand that. But we will move on much faster and have support while you do it if we have asked for professional help.

Other reasons we struggle can include:

1. We are scared that forgiveness justifies the pain that was caused. It does not.
2. We are not ready to grieve the experience. Letting it go requires us to grieve it out first.
3. We are worried that by forgiving we make ourselves more vulnerable to being hurt again. That could happen anyway even if we don’t forgive. But we are stronger and wiser once we do forgive so it probably won’t happen.
4. We believe that forgiveness is the same as reconciliation. It is not, see above.
5. We are scared to face and process our emotions in regard to what happened. Very understandable. But if you are having trouble here, again I recommend a local therapist. They will help you with this process.
6. By refusing to forgive, we maintain a false sense of control over the experience/person. We may even feel very comfortable being the victim. You might not want to hear that, but it can be true. Being the victim has become a comfort zone and part of our identity. We have to be willing to disregard this identity and become a survivor and eventually a thriver.
7. We are not ready to change the relationship we have with our past.

Working On Forgiving Ourselves First Is Key.

Always remember to start small and build from there.

Taking too big a step in the first instance may not be as helpful as we thought. We don’t want to create, or change, anything too fast as we can frighten ourselves into quitting too soon.

Some of these suggestions may seem strange to you at first. You may ask what has any of these got to do with forgiving yourself? But we need to create a more supportive, nurturing, and loving environment for ourselves in order to grow into self-forgiveness. These first steps will enable us to do that.

1 Take back Your Power.

No matter what happened to us at that time our power was taken from us. So now we have to decide to take back our power. We get to decide what we want. That is our first boundary setting exercise.

Do we want serenity that comes from forgiving ourselves enough to let go of the past? This can be such a hard, and extremely large, question to ask ourselves.

As I’ve said our past painful experiences may be so tied into our identity that we may find it hard to put those experiences in the past where they belong. So it may be no wonder we have shied away from even asking the question and doing the hard work involved.

Take some time to journal about what you want from this work as well. What is your why? Who are you really doing this for? Make sure it is for yourself and not someone else. There may be times when you may lose motivation to continue. So having a clear picture of your why will keep you going in those times.

2 Make Sure You Are Looking After Yourself.

Yes I am talking about self-care here. A lot of time we lose this because of what has happened to us. It also affects how we interact with ourselves now. We feel we don’t deserve and we are not good enough. So by looking after ourselves we are setting another boundary here.

This is an important step in taking back our power also. It is drawing a line in the sand and saying enough is enough. We are willing to take small baby steps in self-care. We are saying to the world and to ourselves, more importantly, is “I matter, I am good enough, I deserve my own love and in order to that I will take care of myself”.

Every time we tick off one item on our daily basic self-care list we are now:

1. setting a new boundary, with ourselves and with others, and
2. we are affirming we are good enough, we deserve our own time, love, nurturing and support.

3 Review What Is Going On In Your Life Right Now.

This will help you set another boundary. It enables you to take back control of what is going on in the present.

• Write down everything you do over the course of a week. I mean everything! Even the small little things that we sometimes forget. This may take a number of weeks for you to gather all the information. That is okay, take your time and get that list together as best you can. Leave the perfectionism at the door though.
• Now review this list. Beside everything you have written down decide if you can: Delete it. Yes you can stop doing things that don’t serve you. Hand it back to the person really responsible for it. Yes you can do this, they are adults and quite capable of doing it for themselves. Delegate it. Partners, children/teens are very able to help out at home too, you don’t need to do everything for them.
• The remaining items on your list should be more manageable and really your responsibility. If you are still overwhelmed by it start the review process again with this new list. If this is something work related perhaps you need to ask for help or your job has become a two person one.

A word of caution here:

(1) Review this list at least every 6 months if not every month please. We can add back in things we had deleted or delegated so easily. Especially if others are use to us doing things for them.

(2) Any time you free up is for you and you alone. It is not to be used to help others. Or take on more responsibilities. Remember you are now setting new boundaries with those in your life.

If you find delegating, handing it back or deleting difficult, then take the smallest items (time wise) and start with these. The more you practice doing this the easier it becomes. Keep going you can do this for yourself!

4 Set Healthy Boundaries With Negative People.

That brings me to setting healthy boundaries with negative people. Often times when we are still caught up with past trauma we will not set healthy boundaries with others in the present. It may not be the same as it was in the past. But we will still meet negative, toxic, people who violate our boundaries today. They will continue until we eliminate them from our lives.

Remember you are taking back your power with all these activities and nurturing yourself in the process. I’ve spoken in detail about how to deal with, and delete, negative people, so please check out these blogs, videos and podcasts.

Again it may not be the easiest of jobs to start. But by taking the easiest people first we gain practice and our self-confidence in setting this boundary. We can then move on to more difficult or toxic negative people that inhabit our lives.

5 Look At How We Communicate With Ourselves And Others Now.

“Speak to me with respect or be contained by my new healthy boundaries” can be a new phrase to adopt. Are you using your “I” statements? Are you really communicating what you want, need or desire? If not, why not?

Be honest with yourself here. Raising your awareness and simply accepting how you communicate with others are the first two steps to changing your skills here.

Journaling our responses to the above questions can be very enlightening. We can have different methods of communication with different people in our lives also. Or we may use one method of communication in work situations but quite a different one in our personal lives. Listing out the people we interact with, and how we communicate with each of them, will help us to begin to see your patterns here.

I’m not just talking about what we say out loud either. But what our inner dialogue tells us much. Especially about our past experiences. Look at your negative thinking here and start to track it. You can find out more in this blog post about deleting negative thinking.

Our body language can say so much, in fact it communicates about 70% of what we say. How we dress and how we hold our body can be quite revealing to others. When we dress the best we can that day it can give us some quiet inner confidence. It doesn’t have to be the latest fashion, but it makes us comfortable and that gives us confidence. So ask yourself, is what you are wearing the best you can do for today? Are you wearing this to please someone else? Do you feel confident in what you are wearing?

How we hold our bodies also reveals a lot. Simply holding our chins up and getting our eyes looking forward is empowering. It is also part of a reclaiming our bodies exercise that is used in trauma healing. Often we can be quite unaware that we are walking around looking at the ground. Or that we avert our eyes when we see someone approach us. So become more aware of how you hold your body. Watch how others do this also.

6 Review Your Emotional Health.

What are your emotions/feelings doing to your life now? What is going on in your head, heart, gut and soul? It’s all interconnected, see Hot Cross Model from CBT (image). So what is going on in our heads, how and what we are thinking will dictate our behaviours and emotions/feelings.

Journal out these questions to review your emotional health:

• What emotions are dictating how you live your life? If you’re feeling stuck examine one area of your life at a time.
• What are your beliefs about this area of your life?
• Is there a particular event or thing that happened to make you feel this way or have this belief?
• Are there emotional experiences from your past or present that contribute to this belief?
• Are you making assumptions about this area of your life?
• Determine what you are gaining from this belief?
• Ask yourself: Have you ever gone against this belief?
• Really pull this belief apart, look for evidence for and against this belief and decide whether you will keep or discard it now.
• Now think about what your future would be like without this belief.
• You can also do this exercise with positive beliefs, so you can build the positivity around this belief further.

Forgiveness also means letting go of our shame and guilt surrounding failing to protect ourselves at the time. Toxic shame can be particularly difficult to let go of. I’ve talk about letting it and guilt go in this blog post. But if you feel you are caught up in these, or any emotion, then I have to stress that getting professional help is the quickest way you can help yourself move forward here.

7 Build Your Positives.

When we lose ourselves or get caught up in negativity we forget that we do have some positives in our lives. It can in fact be frightening to realise we have happiness in our lives and I talk more about happiness as an emotion here. But we need to explore the good as well as the bad. Otherwise we tend to focus too much on the negatives. That is never good for helping us to learn forgiveness, letting go of the past or moving forward in an empowered manner.

1. Write down 10 things you’re grateful in your life everyday today. You might need to fake it till you make it to start with but you will quickly realize everything you are grateful for.
2. Be as specific as you can be.
3. Write down one way how you practice gratitude. If you don’t practice gratitude already begin today. Gratitude is the fastest way to boost your mental health. (You can read more here)

8 As I Said Remember To Start With The Smaller Stuff. Especially with this section.

By now, if you have started to work through the above steps, you will have gained back some of your power, feel more secure, loved (by self at least) and nurtured. It’s now time to look at what happened and why/what you need to forgive.
Remember this is about you forgiving you. You are not involving others in this. That is for a later choice.

Take your time here and write down everyone that has hurt you in your life. Even in a small way but you know you haven’t let it go. I’m talking about the ones you haven’t forgiven yet.

If you’re holding onto your anger, shame, fear, guilt, etc. Or you know you haven’t grieved out the event or situation. Then I’d say you have people you haven’t forgiven yet in your life.

1. Write down that list of people. Include yourself at the top of it!
2. Write down what they did. Or what you did, that you can’t let go of. Describe it in as much detail as possible including all of your thought, emotions, reactions and physical responses.
3. Now re-read it. Is there anyone/thing/event on that list you can forgive immediately? This list gives you a clue as to why these people, events, and your own thoughts, still hold sway over you. Even in the slightest manner. Use that information to work on letting go of the past and forgive you.
4. You have to ask yourself:

• What do I want and need exactly from this person?
• Is it an apology?
• If so how long are you prepared to put your life on hold waiting for something you have no control over?
• Do we need them to know how we feel, even after all this time? Is that even realistic or worth putting yourself through it?

5. Write a letter to this person. Tell them how you feel. What has happened to you as a result of their actions. Really write it all down, get out as much as possible. This letter is not for sending!
6. Now burn the letter and visualize letting that person go. You are not forgiving them you are releasing them from holding you in the past. You may need to do this exercise of letter writing and burning a few times in order to feel the benefit.
7. Now write a letter to yourself, be honest with yourself. Explain how you did the best you could under the circumstances and place the blame back with the real villain here. Be loving and kind towards yourself. You are forgiving yourself here not adding to your burden. Remember to tell yourself of all the positives you have gained in your life too. It’s a good reminder to have. That even out of what may seem darkness there can come some light and good (see step 7 above).

Please Note

Some of these people may be dead. You may not know what has happened to them and they could be long gone from your life. But knowing what you want and need from them is going to be a big clue to giving that to yourself now. By that I mean even by acknowledging what was done to us, how we feel about it and telling them what they did will allow us to receive some peace in this situation.

Remember too these types of people have a very difficult time loving themselves and they aren’t capable of loving someone else too. So don’t wait too long with your decision to move forward with your life.

Reach Out For Support.

If you are finding any of this hard then I would strongly advise you to seek therapy with the specific idea of forgiving yourself. Bring the list to your therapist and work though it with them. Remember you are looking to forgive not reconcile with any of these people, except yourself of course!

You can get through this. You can move on with your life and find forgiveness, serenity, peace and love again.

Work With Me.

Remember you are allowed to ask for support. No one is an island. If you need extra support then you can also work with me. We all struggle with stress and overwhelm from time to time. If you find this has become a problem for you and you’d like some support then schedule an appointment with me.

My Book.

Did you know I talk more about working on forgiveness, shame, guilt, boundaries plus more topics in my book and workbook The Building Blocks Of Self-Care? You can purchase it here.

If you are in an abusive relationship please seek support:

Ireland Supports For Domestic Violence

Women’s Aid 1800 341 900

Men’s Aid 01 554 3811

LGBTQ+ 1890 929 539

Childline 1800 666 666 TXT 50101

Samaritans 116 123

UK Supports For Domestic Violence

National Domestic Violence Helpline 0808 2000 247

Refuge 0808 2000 247

Men’s Advice Line, for male DV survivors 0808 801 0327

The Mix, info & support under 25s   0808 808 4994

National LGBT+ DV 0800 999 5428

Samaritans 116 123